"Best chord chart app" is a different question from "best guitar app." A gigging musician is not learning a song, they are reading one they already know, on a stand, with a set to get through and no time to fight the interface between songs. That narrows the field a lot faster than a general top-ten does.

Six apps below, picked because each is a real answer for somebody, and none of them for everybody. What each is worst at matters as much as what it is best at — that is the part a sales page never says out loud.

What a stage app actually has to do

Before the names, the five questions that decide this for most people. Nearly every argument about chord chart apps is really an argument about which of these matters most to you:

  • Does it hold your own songs? A library of somebody else's charts is a different product from a stand for your own repertoire, and the two are easy to confuse while shopping.
  • Does it run on the devices already in the room? Not the device you would buy — the ones the singer and the bass player are holding tonight.
  • Does it survive no signal? Rehearsal rooms are in basements and festival fields have no bars.
  • Can you turn the page without stopping playing? Hands-free scrolling, or a pedal.
  • Can you change the key when a voice needs it? Transposing, a capo, or both.

Everything below is judged against those, and nothing below scores well on all five.

OnSong

The deepest stage rig of the six. It reads text charts and PDFs, transposes and capos both, scrolls hands-free, takes a wireless foot pedal, plays backing and click tracks, sends MIDI, and projects lyrics to a second screen. Free to download and build a library in; Essentials is $29.99 a year for two devices, Premium $59.99 a year for four devices plus annotations, tracks, MIDI and projection. Prices as listed in August 2026 — check the current ones before deciding.

Worst at: existing anywhere but Apple. iPhone, iPad and Mac only — no Android, no web app for reading from. Full comparison: an OnSong alternative.

SongBook ChordPro

The one built on the same open format Strumfolio reads and writes. iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows and macOS — genuinely cross-platform, ahead of every Apple-only entry here before anything else is said. It reads ChordPro and .crd/.tab files natively, auto-zooms and auto-scrolls, ships chord libraries reaching past guitar into mandolin, banjo and piano, and has a metronome and Bluetooth pedal support. Paid per platform, per store.

Worst at: a subscription-free plan that stays useful — you buy it once, but you buy it again on the next platform. Full comparison: a SongBook alternative.

JustChords

The most feature for the least money, if your band is on Apple. Transpose, capo, or rewrite a song into a new key outright; a metronome and tuner in the same app; chord diagrams for guitar, ukulele and piano that play the chord back to you; audio tracks attached from Spotify or Apple Music; Bluetooth and MIDI pedals; AUv3, so it runs as a plugin inside Logic Pro and GarageBand; PlayTogether, which keeps a whole band's setlists in sync live. Free, with optional tips rather than a subscription.

Worst at: the same ceiling as OnSong. iPhone, iPad and Mac, nothing else, and PlayTogether only syncs a band that is entirely on those. Full comparison: a JustChords alternative.

Ultimate Guitar: Chords & Tabs

The one to open when the song is not yours. A crowd-sourced library in the millions, on iOS, Android and the open web, useful the moment you need a chart for something you did not write down yourself. Pro runs $29.99 a year with a 100-tab offline cap; Pro+ at $59.99 a year lifts the cap and adds PDF export. Prices as listed and worth re-checking, as with every app here.

Worst at the two things a stage rig needs and a tab library does not promise: accuracy and calm. A crowd-sourced chart is only as good as whoever transcribed it, and the free tier is built around ads on a page you are trying to read at a glance — it is the app Strumfolio's own design notes name directly as what a chord sheet should not look like.

Songsterr

Built for tab accuracy first — synced playback, per-instrument mute, tempo control — with chords as part of the package rather than the whole of it. Best for a bass or drum part you need to nail exactly, less suited to a vocal-led set of lyrics and chords. Plus is $9.99 a month and unlocks looping, pitch shift and offline playback of tabs you have already opened.

Worst at: being a lyrics app. There is no songwriting, no repertoire of your own words to organize — it is a library to play along with, not a stand for your own set.

Strumfolio

Where the browser fits into this list: the same address opens on an iPad, a Pixel, a Windows laptop and whatever the drummer is holding, with no store and no per-platform purchase. Once a song has been opened it stays readable with no signal. The free plan holds a real repertoire with no end date — one songbook, thirty songs — and reads back in international, Italian, German or Nashville-number notation, chosen per reader rather than per song. How to convert existing chord sheets into ChordPro covers moving a library in without retyping it.

The one thing here that has no equivalent above: Strum Together shares a link, and anyone who opens it — no account, no install, no purchase — follows the same song in the same key from their own screen. A guest who arrived ten minutes ago can be reading along before the count-in.

Worst at: everything OnSong and JustChords are best at. No PDF import, no annotation, no pedal, no MIDI, no backing or click tracks, no metronome or tuner. If the act runs on any of those, it runs better on one of the other five.

Checkable without signing up for anything: the reading arithmetic is on four free tool pages — transposing a whole sheet, finding the capo, converting a chord sheet and timing a set. They run the same code the app runs, so what they do is what it would do with your songs.

Picking one

  • The whole band is on Apple and the charts are PDFs: OnSong.
  • The whole band is on Apple and money is the constraint: JustChords.
  • The band wants to own the app outright, on whatever devices they already have: SongBook.
  • The song is somebody else's and you need a chart fast: Ultimate Guitar.
  • The set is instrumental-heavy and the tab has to be exact: Songsterr.
  • The devices in the room do not match, and you would rather send a link than an install: Strumfolio.

The pattern in that list is worth naming: the deepest apps here are Apple-only, the cross-platform ones ask you to buy or install per device, and the browser trades the stage hardware — pedals, MIDI, tracks — for running anywhere with nothing to install. Nobody has solved all three at once, so the honest question is not which app is best but which of the three compromises you can live with.

Two narrower questions worth their own answer: which of these actually survive a room with no signal, and which are worth having when you are the only one on stage.

Questions people ask

What is the best chord chart app for playing live?
There is no single answer, because the apps split on platform rather than on quality. On Apple hardware OnSong and JustChords are the deepest stage rigs, with pedals, tracks and MIDI between them. Across mixed devices the choice is a cross-platform app bought per platform, or a browser-based one that opens at the same URL everywhere. Decide which of those three you are, and the shortlist is two apps long.
Which chord chart app works on both iPhone and Android?
SongBook ChordPro is genuinely cross-platform — iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows and macOS — with the purchase made per platform. Strumfolio is a web app, so the same address opens on any of them with nothing to install. Ultimate Guitar covers iOS, Android and the web too, but as a library of other people’s charts rather than a stand for your own repertoire.
Is there a free chord chart app worth using on stage?
Yes, with different catches. JustChords is free with optional tips and gates almost nothing, but only exists on Apple devices. Strumfolio’s free plan holds one songbook and thirty songs with no time limit, and reading is never gated. OnSong is free to download and build a library in, with the stage features on paid tiers.
Do I need a tablet, or is a phone enough?
A phone is enough for a solo player who mostly needs the words, and a tablet earns its place the moment you are reading a full chart at arm’s length on a stand. The more useful question is whether your app runs on what you already own: if it does, you can start with the phone in your pocket and buy a stand later.